Natural History

The Baltimore noise-rock quartet's sophomore album, their first for Drag City, finds them softening their sound but still nailing the sweet spot between savagery and self-awareness.

Featured Tracks:

"Lazy Slave" — Dope BodyVia Pitchfork

"Weird Mirror" — Dope BodyVia Pitchfork

On their debut album, Nupping, Dope Body hit loft-show paydirt by splicing noise-rock with melodies salvaged from the junkyard of 1990s FM radio. That may sound like an unpalatable combo, but the Baltimore four-piece used each genre to subvert the other's worst tendencies. A swatch of Red Hot Chili Peppers homage could complicate the menace from a song stacked with splintering feedback. A few atonal squelches helped tweak a pummeling riff's macho momentum. The result was heavy music that possessed moments of levity but avoided parody. Now, perhaps weary of having Anthony Kiedis comparisons lobbed at them, Dope Body have backed away from the butt-rock influences.

On their follow up, Natural History, they've chilled out a bit. Maybe some of the mystical neo-Americana vibes championed by their new label, Drag City, have rubbed off on them. The first sound on the album isn't a blast of feedback but the tingling of wind chimes. That song, "Shook", lilts back and forth on a languid two-chord vamp with frontman Andrew Laumann grunting quasi-mystical pronouncements, striking closer to Lungfish's Daniel Higgs than Zack de la Rocha. "Crystallize the eyes/ Let them know you can feel it/ I feel it all around," he grunts.

Even in its most jittery, Nintendo-nostalgic moments, Natural History is a roomier effort than its predecessor. On Nupping, guitarist Zach Utz loaded songs with sonic belches and abstract gurgles. This time he's more selective with the audio-graffiti. His playing has taken a more melodic turn, incorporating elements from Holy Ghost Party, his tropical-psych guitar side project with Dope Body drummer David Jacober. On "Weird Mirror" he plots out a pattern of robot-rock riffs that make the band sound like the Cars channeling San Francisco sci-fi proto-punk duo, Chrome.

Brutishness is still Dope Body's forte, though, and they haven't abandoned it. During the chorus to "Road Dog", Laumann gets inspirational, chanting the lines, "Do what you want to do... Be who you want to be." But he barks the words like a gym teacher on the edge of blowing his anger-management course, commanding listeners to either self-actualize or drop and give him 20. "Out of My Mind" churns like an off-center cement mixer, with a bassline that probably owes a few royalties to Soundgarden's "Slaves and Bulldozers".

It's one of the only flickers of 90s worship on Natural History, but there are still plenty of moments when the line between goofball antics and freakish punk-rock blowouts gets blurred. They may have changed up their game, but Dope Body still nail the sweet spot between savagery and self-awareness.